By Isaac Ato MENSAH
Accra – 26 November, 2018.
The University of Ghana (UG) main campus at Legon offers many scenic attractions; there are many places that students and former students have still not seen.
But since virtually everyone goes through the main gate, the Bush Canteen is unmistakable.
It is a stone’s throw right of the main gate, seated southeast of the campus and showing the shameful retrogression in the entire nation’s pursuit of truth and integrity; our compromise with mediocrity; our spineless approach to solving existential problems.
‘You mean students eat there?,’ a friend asked when I showed him the pictures.
‘I remember when students demanded an upgrade of the place in the mid 1990s they were told clearly that it was not recognised by the university,’ I tried in vain to defend my alma mater.
But some 20 years down the line, academic rigour and intellectual analysis required to solve the nation’s existential problems has yielded to populist derriere kissing.
It plays out in many forms; we need the support of the SRC; the Junior Common Room (JCR) canteens are no longer operating; so where can poor students find cheap food to buy?.
The university janitors eat there so you cannot stop students from going there; some workers’ family members are sellers in that market so you need a human face to solving the problem; bla bla blab……excuses ad nauseum.
I once had lunch at a so called five-star hotel here in Accra.
We joined a long queue to the buffet table with waiters standing behind the food.
And there was banku (a ball of corn dough) wrapped in transparent plastic bags.
Everyone sees it as normal.
It seems to me that as part of their orientation, expatriates are told not to comment on our culture or anything horrible they find here.
So they were all in the queue.
Aarrgh!!! Are you not tired of this country?
If Legon is the nation’s premiere university – a brand that students and former students brandish with a grin and pride, and this is our standard, then…..
As we are all aware, difficulty in gaining admission is also a brand and now difficulty in entering or navigating the campus with your car is also the norm
And then what do you see?
Pockets of improvised, dirty market stalls where hot soup is served in plastic bags to students and the wider community, then….
When I was young, my class two teacher told me that when you are eating and a housefly lands on the food, scoop that portion and throw it away.
From class two to date, I have always preached that message to anyone who cares to listen.
‘Then before long you will throw all your food away,’ a childhood friend said way back then.
Today, cholera is still with us, contrary to what Mohammed Adjei Sowah, the mayor of Accra is preaching that there has been no cholera in Accra in the past two years.
He can disregard the facts all he wants; we are not amused.
One astute observer of our society keeps saying that we have a relentless penchant for destruction.
‘Anything good; we will surely mess it up’, he states with disgust.
Sadly, the legacy that the Gold Coast intelligentsia – both European and nationalists – hoped to establish has been thrown to the dogs.
Adieu David Mobray Balme, Adieu Fraser, Kwegir Aggrey and the rest of the visionaries who hoped to create a little haven that will shape and transform the nation.
Today it has been consumed by an ‘all pervasive harmonious mediocrity’ as my mentor will say.
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